


On Time

by sirnando



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 15:40:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11107629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirnando/pseuds/sirnando
Summary: Sergio is only intrigued by Marco the first time. Marco is unsatisfied.





	On Time

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to my good friend Angie (sergirobreto on tumblr) for creating this beautiful ship and thinking up some of the amazing details in this one shot(,: sergio is married, there's a warning of my own

Sergio had been told all his life to figure it out. 

He wasn't always sure what the elusive 'it' that his parents always talked about was, but he tried his best to follow the imaginary markers that they placed for him down a pathway they carved out. 

He quit his bullfighting dreams for his mother. Got married to a countryside girl for his father. And had kids for the both of them. 

He had table manners. He was outspoken. He loved his horses and he lit up a room with one smile and one stupid joke and everyone loved him for it. He always held the collection of imaginary markers that he'd accomplished in his hand, showed them symbolically to everyone through the tattoos on his body. 

So by thirty Sergio had 'figured it out'. Or at least he had gone far enough down his parents' path for him so that they stopped reminding him of what he could've and should've done. And he himself was partially satisfied with what it had brought him, because it was done to honor his parents. All for his parents. So when Marco came around he found himself wandering up and down the path, desperately trying to look for a Marco marker to reassure himself that he still had it figured out.

~

Marco was gentle. Flower petal fingertips and eyelashes so long they touched the arch below his eyebrows.

Sergio wasn't sure how to approach him the first time. But he settled for the usual outstretched handshake and Marco looked at him, the hand and smirked. He pat him on the back and left Sergio with a "Nice to meet you Ramos."

Sergio had squinted, watched Marco introduce himself to the others from the corner of his eye and walk slowly away. Interesting, but not enough for Sergio to linger too long. Not enough for him to walk up himself for a proper introduction. But enough for him to start paying attention.

~

Marco was what Sergio had once been and more. He was sweat, bloody knuckles, skinned knees and sore throats. He brought his friends to rooftops just to throw rocks on the ground. He slept in fields on old cardboard when he didn’t feel like going home and he told everyone, absolutely everyone, that the road he was following was one he chopped himself in the jungle with a pocket knife and some dirty bandages. He got to this club and this point in his life himself. He was a middle finger in the wind and the jar that collected your change when you swore.

Sergio stayed away. He got a few playful punches to the jaw, some swear words out of adoration from Marco and never a hi, bye or a handshake. He had broken up with those kinds of things when he got married and then reinforced it when he had kids.

~

Sergio had been what Marco was now. Much less though. He heard the stories, saw the photos, re-lived them thanks to the animations of the other team members. But he had grown up now, matured, chopped his hair and become a self proclaimed leader. Marco tested it.

But no swear word, no jaw slam, no smirk gave him the reaction he was looking for. The free spirit icon had collapsed into life’s responsibilities. But it was alright, he would gladly fill the vacancy.

~

Sometimes Sergio caught Marco looking towards him and every time he looked over he expected the usual quick turn away. Marco never turned away. He kept staring straight at him and only stopped when he felt fit. Sergio had dug his fingernails into his palms multiple times. Long enough to start paying attention to Marco more.

~

Marco fell asleep on Sergio’s shoulder on the plane once. It was a moment of vulnerability that he hadn’t expected from the boy who spat profanity and liquor from between his lips at any other time.

Marco had chosen the seat next to him. Sergio had been waiting for Marcelo, but it was difficult to shove him out of the way. Even more difficult to politely ask him to “Fuck off” somewhere else. Marco had just looked from underneath his eyelashes and stuck his headphones in.

Sergio’s stomach had twisted when he felt the light thump on his shoulder. He bit the inside of his cheek. Marco smelled like rose shampoo and much too musky aftershave. Sergio closed his own eyes and tried not to stir.

~

Nobody asked about the shoulder. Marco never sat next to him again. Sergio watched from the other side of the aisle. 

It didn’t matter. Why did it matter? All Marco had to offer in exchange for friendship was a fuck you and a sleeping pill they weren’t supposed to be taking anyways. 

But he watched. For whatever reason, he watched Marco’s headphones go in, his eyes close and he waited for his head to tip over onto Lucas’ shoulder.

The head stayed in place. Sergio closed his eyes in satisfaction.

~

Records show that Sergio Ramos was very rarely the one to make the first approach to anyone. That’s how it was. He never asked for it any other way. The one exception was when he asked his wife to marry him. She had asked for kids.

So Sergio stayed put with his status with Marco, because he did not want to break his record. When he felt Marco’s eyes follow him at Cristiano’s pool gathering, he threw back more tequila, followed it with pineapple.

Nothing happened. And then it came.

“What’re with your tattoos anyways.” It came from behind. Sergio turned to shirtless Marco whose eyes didn’t leave Sergio’s own naked torso.

“They all have meaning.”

And Marco wide eyed him, asked him how a devil holding a soccer ball and playing cards on his elbows held a spiritual meaning. He didn’t like Sergio’s “I’d prefer not to explain” response.

They stood leaned against the bar, Marco playing with a toothpick, Sergio sipping gin and tonic through one of the thin straws, watching James be pulled underwater by Marcelo.

“Yeah? Well I have one too.” Marco finally turned back, Sergio looked. He lifted his arm to show underneath his forearm, revealing a badly drawn smiley face with “lol” written underneath. The pen was lying next to his drink.

He left. Sergio smiled at his back.

~

Sergio wasn’t one for weekend yacht excursions because she usually wanted him to baby sit the kids, but something in Marco’s reply to Cristiano’s invitation tugged at his insides. One weekend trip wouldn’t hurt.

So he found himself on deck of Cristiano’s yacht in the middle of the water with a sunburnt Marco next to him.

“Don’t you like have a family to take care of?” his sunglasses were slipping down his nose. Skin had started peeling at the top of his forehead. Sergio smiled inwardly.

“Like yeah, but even old men deserve some sort of adventure.” All he got was a laugh in response and a million small “uh oh’s” in his head when he stared at Marco stretch and dive into the water.

~

She warned him. Warned him for going out too much lately. But this time it had been Marco who invited them all to some club in the middle of nowhere where no cameras could be found. “Everyone’s invited, even the old married men” and everyone had laughed. All the old married men who slapped each other on the back and nodded along in agreement. Sergio got a back slap, a look from Marco and another uh oh to the pile that was stacking up in the back of his brain.

He ignored the uh oh, apologized to her and found Marco with the others waiting in front of the club at the time that they had planned.

He might’ve been consciously unconscious or unconsciously conscious the whole time, he didn’t remember. All he remembered was Marco smoking across the table, throwing curses at imaginary figures he materialized from the stories he was telling Alvaro, Isco, James. Remembered the cigarette burn he showed off on his palm that he’d done on a dare for five bucks. He remembered that the music was too loud and he periodically checked his ears for blood while Marco rolled his eyes and reminded him that anything bad that happened from doing something that felt good was worth it. Worth it every time. He remembered trying to forget certain pit stops along the path his parents made, because Marco had held his breath and gathered up the courage to dance against him. He remembered Marco’s petal palm on his hip and that for a split second he wished he brought sanitizing wipes because the bathroom was much dirtier than everyone had warned.

He remembered he didn’t know what to do. With his hands, with his chest, with the pounding in his head and the water collecting in his eyes. Marco watched him run his hand through his greased hair, lightly smiling. It smelled like piss, Sergio felt his blood warm, felt Marco breath heavy, thought he felt the others walking towards the bathroom now, walking, wondering, worried.

Marco placed a finger on Sergio’s lips as Sergio slowly leaned in and whispered, “Don’t waste my time Ramos.” but he took his petal finger off the lips and Sergio kissed him. Pressed him into the wall, wrapped his hands around Marco’s neck. And Marco tasted just how he was, cigarette smoke and peaches, with rose petals and vodka that cut your throat if you weren’t paying attention. And for the first time Sergio experienced exactly what everyone had meant when they kept telling him to figure it out.

~

From all the romantic comedies that she had made him watch (and the ones he watched on his own because Sergio always loved romance), events did not unfold like they promised. He did not take Marco by the hand and lead him to his home, because his home was full of people who should not know. He did not screw Marco against the wall while reading the messages people scraped into it, because that was not special. And Marco had become something special in a few moments. Maybe not Marco himself, but the idea of Marco. Tingling stomach and sweaty palms.

Instead he went home with chapped lips he kept licking until Marco had completely disappeared. He showered and went to bed like every other night. He promised her that he would be home next weekend even if the promise was hollow.

And Marco did not run and jump into his arms the next day. It was raining, but not romantically, the kind that soaked you just thinking about it and you couldn’t see the person standing a few feet in front of you.

Instead he got a Marco who flipped him off in greeting, but whose eyes were a little brighter. Or maybe it was the hangover making him hallucinate.

The one thing he was positive he did not hallucinate was when he grabbed Marco by the tips of his fingers and lead him into a storage closet like in the movies, among the mops and the rags and the Lysol.

Sergio wrapped his arms around Marco's stomach, pressed his head under his chin, onto his shoulder and inhaled. Marco was stiff.

"What are you doing?" His voice was still poisonous but his chin was rested in Sergio's hair. 

Sergio shrugged, exhaled and kissed his neck. “Figuring it out along the way.”

 

  
~

Sometimes Marco talked for hours. Lay on his back and used Sergio's hands to draw stick figures in the air of everything he had dreamed of being. The story of how the world didn't give him the life he wanted so he filled his mouth with stones, spit and harsh truths to mold it into what he wanted. How he hated the sun but couldn't move away because he was scared he'd hate the snow even more.

Sergio would watch from beside him, give him limp limbs to work with and ask a question when appropriate. And when Marco got overwhelmed, inhaled too loudly, bit his lip, Sergio rolled over and pressed their foreheads and noses together. Eyes closed.

He let Sergio kiss the palm scar, the one behind his ear from a extended nail, the one on his elbow from when he fell off a roof and the one down his thigh from a surgery he did not remember and did not care to find out about.

~

Sergio never stayed the night because he could not afford to explain why. So they took naps with closed doors and blinds that Marco initiated, so that he could experience something that would otherwise never happen.

Every time Sergio reminded him that never was always reversible and Marco reminded him that they were both realists, so what was the point of wasting your breath.

Sergio had tattoos on every body part possible. Marco learned that early on.

He'd trace each one with his pinky finger every time before they went to sleep. Place small kisses on all of them. Sergio would tense under the tickling from Marco's stubble. Marco left the pelvic eagle for last every time.

Sergio would keep count in his head and point to which ever ones Marco missed. And Marco would smirk and roll his eyes but listen to the pointed finger. Sometimes he licked the skin just because he liked how the goosebumps tasted against his tongue.

And then Sergio started spending money on markers with harmless chemicals so that he could draw his own tattoos on Marco’s arms, neck, chest, pelvis. Sometimes they matched his own and sometimes he would draw them according to what Marco was describing. Money trees, butterflies with dusty wings, hedgehogs with fruit stuck in its quills. He made dragons breath cotton candy and had skulls with raspberries and poppy seeds stuck in their teeth.

The concealed ones he'd keep for weeks. The uncovered ones he scrubbed at with rose scented soap, on skin that Sergio would rub his nose into.

And each time that Marco woke up before Sergio he'd look up and promise himself next time he wouldn't miss this as much because otherwise he'd just be wasting his time.  
~

It had been six months when someone noticed. A lingering Marco hand on Sergio’s cheek that slid down the cheek bone, under his chin and to the base of his neck. It had been Marcelo who was watching.

And it had been Sergio who threw himself into a panic attack, who kept telling Marco that it was a mistake, a mistake, a motherfucking mistake, he should have listened to the uh oh and dropped it the second he thought of it. Should have carved into that bathroom wall a NO in scrawled script and left.

And it had been Marco who watched Sergio throw himself in his house. Watched him slam doors, fists, words down Marco’s throat that were choking him and he sat there with one tear in his eye and “What did I do” in his head. 

And it had been Sergio who took Marco into his arms. Who stuck his nose into the rose bed in Marco’s hair, with “I’m sorry” on his lips, uh oh in his eyes and “What now” in his head. Marcelo promised he would never tell. Asked if she knew. Sergio never answered.

~

Sometimes when Sergio’s breath was blowing against the back of his neck, Sergio’s legs wrapped around his, he had the urge to turn around and shake him awake. Scream his own “I’m sorry, just go,” into his face. And then sometimes when he still felt Sergio’s fingers between his even though he’d been gone for a while, he screamed for Sergio to leave her into pillows. Stared into the lights in the ceiling even though he forgot how to be religious years ago, mumbled every single swear word under his breath and hoped whatever was up there understood. The closest thing he got to a response was a spider crawling out.

Sergio had bit his nails all the way down to the beds, further until they bled, and walked around with band aids that Marco had administered. Shaking hands. He kept slipping under Marco’s covers even though his phone was full of messages and the acid in his stomach ate away at his sides. He had carved his own side street, like Marco, in the road that he’d been following. The poison ivy was wrapping itself around legs but every single time he woke up and Marco’s nose was pressing up against his own, the blisters from digging the road became worth it.

There was one instance in the winter where the air was too cold to leave the bed but she had called ten times. And before he got up Marco burrowed himself into his neck, mumbled“Fuck me, I think I might love you.” into his collarbone. And Sergio thought, God, he might too.

~

Once when Marco had bit his lip open and had stared at the light for so long he could only see through one eye, he asked Sergio when he was going to leave her. A year and a half into it. When all he got was a look up and back down, he took Sergio’s chin, jerked it into sight of the one good eye and asked again. There was peanut butter in the corner of his lip. Sergio winced.

And he never did get an answer. Locked himself in the bathroom, on the floor, kept encouraging his lip to bleed because the spit pile on the tile floor had started running down, soaking into the rug. Sergio was gone when he came back. He forgot what he expected.

~

He wanted to meet her. Sergio said no. Marco decided to meet her because it had been too long to start listening to instructions now.

He met her at the family dinner that he had no family to bring to. Felt Sergio’s eyes on him as he walked to her, hand outstretched, smile plastered on. Exactly the greeting Sergio had expected to receive the first time.

He had scratched his neck. Laughed at a joke that wasn't funny. Told her he knew her husband very well. Sergio took shots with both hands.

“I now know why you won’t leave her for me.” He came barely saying hello and left without saying goodbye.

~

Sergio had small paper pieces that he would shred every time he wrote anything on them. No one would listen to him except for dead trees. Marco had stopped opening the door as often ever since he told him it was not easy, he could not just move out. Could not leave.

There were bags under their eyes, dirt under their nails and Marco had started swearing more than he had remembered. His story animations ended. Sergio looked and looked away in the locker room. 

She was mad. Sergio remembered but forgot to care as much. He kept his eyes open during the night. Marco left the bottles open, forgot to come off the roofs, remembered to lock the door.

 

~

There was a time when Sergio sat in front of Marco’s door in the rain because his hand had froze before he was able to knock. Marco opened it, arms covered in thorn vine flowers from the last time. He was either too tired or not willing to scrub them off. Faded but still visible and this time Sergio traced and kissed them before they fell asleep without needing to close the blinds since it was dark already. Because Sergio had engraved into both of the walls in their heads that he wasn’t wasting Marco’s time and he was tired of wasting his own.


End file.
